Volume 534 Issue 7606, 9 June 2016

Germany’s decision to slow the expansion of green-energy production is a reasonable move.

The line between compliance and misconduct is finer than you might think.

The fast-moving field of gene-drive research provides an opportunity to rewrite the rules of the science, says Kevin Esvelt.

Gravitational-wave observatory passes technology test; gunman kills engineering professor in California; and Egypt’s bullied students and professors get international recognition.

Network of deep-water observatories streams data in real time.

With drug companies’ policies hard to decipher, frustrated patients often resort to social-media campaigns and other public appeals.

Gold-mining boom in southeastern Amazon is driving high levels of mercury contamination.

Some admire project's ambition; others say that it hasn't justified its aims.

Government can't say how many policy studies it paid for or published, report reveals.

Jaw and teeth discovered in Indonesia are triumph for team that almost gave up hope.

India’s capital city scrambles to tackle its epic pollution problems.

Pieter Dorrestein uses mass spectrometry to eavesdrop on the molecular conversations between microbes and their world.

Common compliance situations can get good researchers into trouble, warn James M. DuBois and colleagues.

Hans Clevers admires an analysis of stem-cell science that sharpens up some of the fuzziness in the field.

Barbara Kiser reviews five of the week's best science picks.

Sharon Weinberger finds much to amuse and disturb in Mary Roach's tour of conflict's wilder shores.

Population ecologist who modelled how species cope with habitat loss.

Are the dynamics of our microbial communities unique to us or does everyone's microbiota follow the same rules? The emerging insights into this question could be of relevance to health and disease. See Letter p.259

The finding that an unusual iron oxide forms at extremely high pressures suggests that hydrogen and oxygen — two elements that strongly influence Earth's evolution — are generated in the mantle. See Letter p.241

Deadly coral snakes warn predators through striking red-black banding. New data confirm that many harmless snakes have evolved to resemble coral snakes, and suggest that the evolution of this Batesian mimicry is not always a one-way street.

The bacteria that inhabit the rodent gut promote insulin secretion and food intake by activating the parasympathetic nervous system — a hitherto unknown mode of action for this multifaceted microbiota. See Article p.213

Two molecular motors have been developed that use chemical energy to drive rotational motion in a single direction. The findings bring the prospect of devices powered by such motors a tantalizing step closer. See Letter p.235

New fossil findings demonstrate that the diminutive hominin Homo floresiensis lived on the Indonesian island of Flores at least 700,000 years ago, and may point to its rapid dwarfism from the larger Homo erectus. See Letters p.245 & p.249

This work highlights the critical challenges in experimental design and interpretation due to important combinatorial effects of host and microbial genes, and calls for the development of minimal reporting requirements to improve the interpretation and reproducibility of experimental biology.

Analysis of ancient genomic data of 51 humans from Eurasia dating from 45,000 to 7,000 years ago provides insight into the population history of pre-Neolithic Europe and support for recurring migration and population turnover in Europe during this period.

A combination of optogenetic, electrophysiological and neuroanatomical tracing methods defines midbrain periaqueductal grey circuits for specific defensive behaviours.

Increased acetate production by an altered gut microbiota in rats fed a high-fat diet activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which in turn promotes increased insulin secretion, increased food intake, obesity and related changes.

The so-called accretion flow that powers the growth of supermassive black holes in galaxy centres is assumed to be dominated by a smooth, steady flow of very hot plasma, but now observations instead reveal a clumpy accretion of very cold molecular clouds onto a supermassive black hole in the nucleus of a nearby giant elliptical galaxy.

A digitized approach to adiabatic quantum computing, combining the generality of the adiabatic algorithm with the universality of the digital method, is implemented using a superconducting circuit to find the ground states of arbitrary Hamiltonians.

An alloy design strategy that aims for phase metastability, rather than phase stability, is described that will lead to the development of transformation-induced plasticity-assisted, dual-phase high-entropy alloys, which exhibit a rare combined increase in strength and ductility.

A fundamentally different approach to designing solid oxide electrolytes is presented, using a phase transition to suppress electronic conduction in a correlated perovskite nickelate; this yields ionic conductivity comparable to the best-performing solid electrolytes in the same temperature range.

A system is described in which a small macrocycle is continuously transported directionally around a cyclic molecular track when powered by irreversible reactions of a chemical fuel; such autonomous chemically fuelled molecular motors should find application as engines in molecular nanotechnology.

First-principles calculations and experiments are used to identify a stable, pyrite-structured iron oxide at 76 gigapascals and 1,800 kelvin that holds an excessive amount of oxygen and to show that goethite (rust) decomposes under these deep lower-mantle conditions to form an iron oxide and release hydrogen; this process provides another way to interpret the origin of seismic and geochemical anomalies in the deep lower mantle of Earth.

Remains of what appears to be Homo floresiensis have now been found at another site in Flores in Indonesia; these 700,000-year-old fossils are older and slightly smaller than the first fossils identified as Homo floresiensis.

Stratigraphic, chronological, environmental and faunal context are provided to the newly discovered fossils of hominins that lived in the So’a Basin in Flores, Indonesia, 700,000 years ago; the stone tools recovered with the fossils are similar to those associated with the much younger Homo floresiensis from Flores, discovered in Liang Bua to the west.

The cultivation of Lenisia limosa, a newly discovered breviate protist, symbiotically colonized by relatives of the animal-associated bacterium Arcobacter.

A new computational method to characterize the dynamics of human-associated microbial communities is applied to data from two large-scale metagenomic studies, and suggests that gut and mouth microbiomes of healthy individuals are subjected to universal (that is, host-independent) dynamics, whereas skin microbiomes are shaped by the host environment; the method paves the way to designing general microbiome-based therapies.

The relationship between assembly of the gut community and gut mucosal immunoglobulin A responses during the first 24–36 months of postnatal life in a cohort of 40 twin pairs is defined and modelled in gnotobiotic mice.

Inhibitors of the mTOR kinase are in clinical trials for the treatment of cancer; here, mutations in mTOR that can lead to drug resistance are investigated and the results are used to design a new class of mTOR inhibitors that can overcome this resistance.

The structure of a bacterial ribosome–RelA complex reveals that RelA, a protein recruited to the ribosome in the case of scarce amino acids, binds in a different location to translation factors, and that this binding event suppresses auto-inhibition to activate synthesis of the (p)ppGpp secondary messenger, thus initiating stringent control.

The ultra-high-resolution structure of the high-potential iron–sulfur protein at 0.48 Å, the highest-resolution X-ray crystal structure of a protein reported so far.

Enlisting the help of an illustrator can add impact to research papers and outreach projects.

A neuroscience PhD graduate became mayor of a small, crazy town — otherwise known as a college.

Forgive and forget?